Indonesian government evacuates Madurese

Police stand guard near a burning refugee camp

By CNN's Yenni Kwok

JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Indonesian authorities have started to evacuate thousands of Madurese from refugee camps to prevent ethnic clashes spreading on the island of Borneo, local media reports.

Residents of Pontianak, the capital of West Kalimantan province, torched the Madurese houses on Sunday, forcing out more than 300 families.

The attack was triggered by the death of a six-year-old boy, killed as four people attempted to rob his family.

When the locals heard the robbers allegedly came from the refugee camp, they set out to attack the makeshift houses erected by the Madurese migrants.

Police stood guard in front of the city's sports stadium, also being used as a shelter for the Madurese refuges, to prevent the mob from storming in.

So far, there have been no reports of fatalities.

Suhadi, spokesman for West Kalimantan police, told a Jakarta radio station that the local government has provided shelters, including houses, outside the city for thousands of Madurese.

Separately, he also said that some refugees have "refused to be evacuated" from Pontianak.

"We have troops and the trucks ready to help the refugees, but many of tem refused to move out from the compound . . . we have no idea of their reasons for doing so," Suhadi said, as quoted by The Jakarta Post Web site.

'Tense' city

He added that Pontianak was still tense on Monday and troops still patrolled the city.

The refugee camps in Pontianak have provided shelter for migrants who fled clashes between Madurese and the native Dayaks in Sambas, also in West Kalimantan, in early 1999.

Besides the indigenous Dayaks, there are other ethnic groups in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo island. Over hundreds of years, Malays, Chinese, Javanese, Buginese from Sulawesi and Madurese have migrated to the island.

In the recent times, the most frequent clashes in Kalimantan have occurred between the Dayaks and the Madurese, often accompanied by the Dayak's traditional practice of headhunting.

Some scholars and common folks say the problem is cultural -- that Madurese habits don't mix well with Dayaks. However, some suggest the cause is the economic competition between the two ethnic groups.

In the 1999 conflict, ethnic Malays joined the Dayaks in a bloody orgy, which killed around 3,000 people, mostly Madurese, and drove tens of thousands from their homes.

Earlier this year, a conflict between Dayaks and Madurese in Central Kalimantan caused the deaths of hundreds of Madurese.